Could Joe Morgan really get any worse? Honestly, I just don’t really see how he could. Does the guy do anything well during a broadcast? Anything?

The most impressive thing he probably does is shut the hell up once in a while so Miller can actually talk. I’m sure I’m not the only one complaining about this stuff today. In fact, I know I’m not becuase I listened to sports radio this morning and they were complaining about the same stuff.

In my opinion (though I’d argue that this is fact) Morgan is an idiot. I really think that is the core of the problem - he just doesn’t get it! He thinks that he is some sort of super-authority on baseball just because he is a hall of fame player and has been an announcer for so long. Whatever he says goes, at least in his mind. He seems to see himself as the be-all end-all authority on baseball and even though he is often times just making stuff up or wildly speculating what a players thought process is, or is just plain wrong, he still speaks with absolute authority.

Now I’m not saying he doesn’t know the game and wouldn’t be a good person to get some hitting tips from. But his knowledge just doesn’t translate to announcing. He is clearly unprepared for the games he announces. He doesn’t know who has been playing well and who hasn’t. He doesn’t know to pronounce some players names or even know what their names are. Anyone who follows anything about baseball knows about Jacoby Ellsbury and how great he is - yet Morgan refers to him as Ellsworth. The Sox did have a guy named Ellsworth on their team - Steve Ellsworth who played in 8 games in 1988. I’m not sure what would be worse - if Morgan thought they were the same guy or if he’s just never heard of Jacoby Ellsbury.

Another part of the broadcast that really annoyed me was when he was talking about David Ortiz. During the intro to the game from Baseball Tonight, they showed clips of Ortiz in the batting cage and the BT guys were talking about how great Papi has been in the past 8 games and how only Berkman had produced more runs over that time frame. Then, when Joe Morgan is talking about him, he commented about how David Ortiz was still not hitting great, but was getting better, etc. etc. It appears that the prep work done by Morgan involved looking at his batting average and drawing the conclusion anyone else would have - .240 isn’t very good but he’s David Ortiz and he’s bound to get better.

He also called Joe Mauer (pronounced like it rhymes with sour) Moyer (like Jamie Moyer). And he isn’t even a rookie - he’s a former batting champion (something Morgan never was).

The real kicker of the night, however, was when Dustin Pedroia barehanded a ball for a play. Morgan was trying to say that he was going for a barehanded play and did a good job (I think) but what ended up coming out was that Pedroia gave the hitter a bare hand job. I don’t think he even realized what he had just said.

There are so many more examples of horribly wrong statements and insights that Joe Morgan tries to make. I think I’ll have to make a running list next time we play the Sunday night game.

Please, God, let Steve Phillips be the commentary guy instead of Joe Morgan! Or at least get someone who’s willing to do a little research beforehand!

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 12:12 pm and is filed under General Postings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.